4 ways health payers can engage providers

4 ways health payers can engage providers

The relationship between insurance companies and medical professionals is an important one. Each party relies on the other to ensure patients are taken care of to the best of their ability. While healthcare providers can interact with their audience in a more tangible way, health payers often have to try a little harder to communicate effectively. Here are a few ways these organizations can engage doctors and nurses successfully:

“Email is the preferred method of contact for doctors and nurses.”

1. Stick to email Insurance providers have a lot of options they can utilize to interact with their audience. From reaching out via phone to sending a representative to medical professionals’ place of work and more, it’s all about finding out what works best for healthcare providers. According to HealthLink Dimension’s 2017 Healthcare Provider survey, 75 percent of nurses and 64 percent of doctors vote for email-based communications.

To make the biggest impact and impression on medical professionals, Kissmetrics recommended that health payers attempt to become whitelisted. This essentially means being added to people’s email address book. This action is no easy feat, but it is possible. The best way to achieve this goal is to include instructions for healthcare providers somewhere in email marketing efforts.

2. Take preferred device into consideration Healthcare providers are busy professionals. They’re constantly moving from one patient to the next and rarely have down time. When they do, they want to make sure they’re not wasting it. Health payers have to take this into consideration when deciding what method they’ll use to communicate with medical professionals. HealthLink Dimension’s HCP research found that 52 percent of nurses and 46 percent of doctors prefer to look through email messages on their smartphone. The second best option doctors and nurses agree on is the use of a desktop computer.

Insurance providers need to create mobile-friendly emails. To do so, these organizations have to ensure pages are fully optimized for smartphones, the design and layout are simple and images are used sparsely, according to Constant Contact.

3. Give the people what they want Now that health payers know that doctors and nurses prefer email outreach they can digest on their mobile phones, it’s important to know what these healthcare providers want in terms of actual materials. For 90 percent of nurses and 68 percent of doctors surveyed by HealthLink Dimensions, information regarding continuing medical education programs was the most popular.

4. Increase the amount of communication There’s a fine line between sending out emails too often and not enough. Luckily, a strong percentage of medical professionals feel communication from their health payers could be increased compared to how it is currently.

While both healthcare providers feel they are receiving adequate updates from insurance carriers, 41 percent of physicians and 28 percent of nurses think the interactions could be slightly more timely. Finding the right balance can be a challenge for payers, but it’s crucial for these organizations to take this feedback into consideration. The key is to make sure these email communications offer high-value materials – such as the preferred information mentioned above, according to Campaign Monitor.

Insurance carriers rely on their interactions with doctors and nurses to provide top-notch care to patients. To ensure these relationships are successfully maintained, health payers need to listen to their audience’s wants and needs. HealthLink Dimension’s Annual HCP Communication Report offers valuable insights into the requests and interests of healthcare providers. Using this information will enable insurance companies to offer materials and communication that will be well received and engaging to their healthcare audience. You can read the full report by downloading it here.